Miscellaneous
As the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic fills hospitals to capacity, mental health providers are seeing a surge of their own. "People are under so much stress," said Ryoko Chernomaz, a licensed clinical social worker at the San Francisco Free Clinic. Issues at home--from increasing childcare responsibilities to domestic abuse--are compounding financial anxieties triggered during the early stages of the pandemic, driving an uptick in mental health needs. Sine the pandemic began, Chernomaz has had a 30% increase in appointments. At CommunityHealth--a free clinic based in Chicago--licensed clinical social worker Ornella Razetto is experiencing a similar trend. "It began with anxiety, depressive symptoms and financial insecurity, said Razetto, but now "reality has sunk in" and patients are battling more severe mental health issues. Razetto has seen a 75% increase in referrals since March. On this episode of the podcast we speak with both Chernomaz and Razetto about how the pandemic is affecting patients' mental health and what they expect the long-term consequences to be.